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A month has gone by

It has been a month, to the day, since I last updated this blog. In that time period, a lot has happened, but none of it necessarily noteworthy enough to gain its own Blog Post. So here’s a December Wrap-Up, and a January Kick-off.

Jenn: You write things. You write things all the time.

Since my last blog post, my boss at work told me that I needed to start learning a new technology. Only not one, two. And I had a project to work on with it. So I’ve been slowly adding MongoDB and Node.js to my repertoire. I think Node is interesting, but until I really get started on something with it, I don’t think I’ll see why so many people go ape-busters over it.

I do get some of the benefit behind MongoDB; it was designed to be incredibly simple and easy to get data out of. So that will at least be interesting to learn. I do not like JavaScript, though, and it is wildly annoying to have to use it as my “main” programming language now. When people espouse the virtues of JavaScript, they invariably tell me that not having to be statically typed is a benefit.

I immediately think people like this are lazy.

Elgin: I do like your brain though. A little bit.

I flew to Missouri for Christmas and the New Year. It was great; I had a fantastic time seeing friends and Family again. I arrived early on the 18th after some flight issues, (I will not go into them here.) and got my rental car. (More issues; I will not go into them here.)

I then drove to see my Grandfather, took him and his live-in Girlfriend to lunch, and they took me to an auction. The auction was interesting, and I saw my aunt Marry Ann while there, but it wasn’t really something I would go to each week. (My Grandfather told me in confidence that he was sure that people just bought stuff one week to flip it the next; I never knew how popular cast iron skillets were until I saw 22 of them sold in a 30 minute period with a lot of bidding on some of them.)

I then went off to see Elgin, hang out with her until Saturday Night. We drove to Bolivar, and had family Christmas Dinner at Smith’s Station. A nice little family restaurant. I got beer battered pork tenderloin. It was delicious. For the next two hours we all ate, laughed, talked, and exchanged stories. Elgin, who was just meeting everyone for the first time, was excellent at keeping up with the conversation. Even better, she was able to keep up with Makenzie sitting on my lap while I was trying to eat. Makenzie doesn’t normally like strangers; she took to Elgin immediately.

Brandon: Thank you all for the birthday wishes!

I spent the days before Christmas bouncing between friend’s houses. They were all really eager to see me; I got to play Monopoly at Steve and Kally’s, Meegan and Leif introduced me to the XBox 1 and Forza 6. Pat and Eric were hospitable as always, and we had a lot of fun just sitting around and talking.

The night before Christmas we went over to PJ and Marie’s to do a gift exchange. Marie was mad at me; I didn’t show up as early as I had intended. But she warmed up quick. I gave Damien his presents, and then facilitated a mostly-successful random gift exchange. We all had a lot of good gifts- everyone was pretty spot on for what to get for people. I was pretty pleased overall when I left and snuck into Sandra’s House at 11PM or so for Christmas Day.

Which was exciting; I posted about 100 photos on Facebook from that day. It was a good time, and I got a fantastic bag from my sister that has become my daily-use bag. (The Bag of Holding from Think Geek, if you’re interested. Dragon Scale.)

Saturday Night I went out with Brandon and his wife to celebrate their birthday. I did Karaoke for the first time, first singing a song that I was unfamiliar with, (Lump by Presidents of the United States of America?) and then a song I did know. (One Week – Bare Naked Ladies.) It was a really good time; we then drove everyone home, and I made my way back to Pat and Eric’s house.

The rest of the week went by in a bit of a blur. I made jokes about kitschy hipster eateries and got some work done. All too soon, I was back at the airport, saying goodbye to Elgin and heading back to New York.

Everything was as I left it; and I fell asleep very quickly after walking through the door. I took an extra day off to recover, and then returned to work.